LOL! Boy, where have I heard this before....???

No, I have never apologized to BW but I would love to--I have thought about it many times.

SD,

I have asked this several times on these forums. The short answer seems to be, if you want to save the marriage then it is a good idea to aim most of the hate and anger at the OP. Even if this is not a great argument intellectually (since the WS was the one who broke promises to you), it is pretty much accepted as the best way to save the marriage.

You have no clue.

In all honesty apologising to OW will only be useful to alleviate your guilt, there is nothing you can say to this woman to make her feel better not even an apology. She is trying to get on with her life whatever way she is doing it you apologising will on cause her further pain. I know people are being harsh and i do sympathise as it cant be easy to get so many 2x4s but you have to look at the BS and see what good an apology will do. it wont change things it will only make you feel better. Please ill say this again, forget that the OM is even on the same planet as you and dont waste anymore energy thinking about his life. There is a man sitting somewhere near you that is desperate to see your guilt, regret and to get an apology (you can never apologise enough). Go to him and make his life a little more barable and forget the OM his W or anyting to do with him, the only time you need to remember him is if you ever get tempted away from your marriage again and even then its in a negative way.

Thank you Brutallyhonest. That is what I thought. Even if I did apologize it would not do any good for her.

After all this time, I am still trying to forget that all this happened but I do have guilt for my BH and for his BW.

It never really occurred to me to ask this question. I knew that OM's BW hated me, and I just accepted it. Of course she hated me. She had every right to hate me, and nothing I did or said could change that. Of course, in my case, I guess her hatred for her WH was just as great, because ultimately, she D'd him. I still feel extremely guilty. I know I hurt her and her two daughters. I think about them often, but there's nothing I can do to ever make that up to them. I cannot take back what I did, as much as I would like to. As a FWW, that is something I have to live with. It is my burden to carry, and carry it I must.

StillDawn: I'm not sure an apology after all this time would be a good idea. I'm assuming the OM in your case is still with his BW, and any sort of apology you attempted to make would only be seen as another intrusion into her M, or some poor attempt to stay in her H's life.

Actually, he probably received more heat AND hate than you. And deserved it. But he also had a relationship with the BW that was worth overcoming that heat and hate. You, as an OW, are simply not worth it.

How do you know she doesn't hold him equally responsible or more responsible? Maybe she does, but is just still plenty mad at you for your part in things.

You're right --nothing that goes on in their family is any business of yours; it should have no place in your thoughts. Failure to banish those kinds of thoughts is a failure to move along.

Why should it bother you even if she does hold you more responsible than she holds her husband? Fairness is about the last thing we waywards have any claim upon. Not legally-speaking under current law, but morally-speaking, I think I deserved to get shot in the neck for my part in my affair. And as far as I'm concerned, so did you, if you intruded on a marriage. Anything better than that fate is gravy for us to be grateful for.

I would agree with this if you have to ask.

Actually I would do a little more investigation in this. I didn't aim ANY hate at the OP. I aimed it at the two people involved - me and my husband. It was OUR marriage. She was a NOTHING to US. If we had been practicing these principles in our M, she would NEVER have been involved. Besides.

I'm sorry to disagree so much with this statement 6years, but I really do.

The OW got involved with a man who was married to another woman (total disregard of another human being....in this case....someone she had never met and could view abstractly.)
She let a man who is married to another woman/person and who is the father of young innocent children bang her and that is really low.
The WH, of couse is to blame for his part in letting the OW think it was a good thing to get involved with him.

The OW are so cruel to the family. So caught up in the competition (the BS rarely knows is there). The WH basks in the glory of having more than one woman (cad), but usually underestimates its effect on his family.

The OW does it with full goal point being 'getting him'/'winning him' from the wife.

That is why.

So true...the OW always wants the BW's life and will stop at NOTHINGto get that...banging a married man in a sleazy hotel room, sneaking around in the middle of the night, demonizing the BW...all this in an attempt to get what is not rightfully hers.

All while the BW innocently sits at home, doing his laundry, cooking his meals, cleaning his house, caring for his children, waiting to hug and kiss him when he walks in the door.

And you wonder why the BW "hates" the OW?

Accepted by whom? That is news to me. Hating the OP has nothing to do with saving the marriage. If the marriage is saved, it is because the affair was ended and the damage repaired. Just as much, if not MORE resentment and anger is aimed at the WS so it puzzles me why anyone would think otherwise. In fact, in most cases NO ANGER whatsoever is expressed to the OP because the OP is cut out of their lives. The BRUNT of the anger all falls on the WS since he is the only one there to take it.

In most cases, the rage is aimed at both, however, the WS is the only one who can have a chance to redeem himself by making amends. The OP gets no such chance.

I don't understand why this issue would ever be brought up in the first place. If I committed such a horrific crime against some woman's family I would accept that she would RIGHTLY hate my [censored]. On what grounds could I possibly object?

BINGO!!

Dawn...where your thoughts dwell, there is your treasure...

and you are allowing your thoughts to go into fantasy...so stop now. When you spend time believing you know what you do don't know, focusing on OM's marriage, then you are robbing your own.

You can write out your apology to OW...write it sincerely, owning what you did, why you did it (identifying your erroneous thinking), and how and why you won't do it again...

and you can hand it to your BH...read it again, together...and burn it.

I strongly advise you to read your first post of this thread to your BH...share with him your thoughts...where they have been...and own that you went where you don't know...you have no idea how much anger and blame the OMW's had for her WS...you don't know and it's not your business.

To KNOW or guess or dwell there VIOLATES your extraordinary precautions...so let your BH know right away you're doing that...because it's how you can slip back into a wayward state of mind (oh, contact is forbidden for life, but if I just hear about, through rumor, friend of friend, their marriage, that's not me crossing my boundary---nor is just wondering, spending time trying to figure out as if I could know when I don't)...

Your job is to protect your marriage from these thoughts, so they don't become what you focus on, where your mind dwells...the longer you spend in fantasy, the more likely you are to make contact, cross the boundary again and again until you don't see it...extraordinary means you don't go near what helped you go wayward in the first place.

Did you spend a lot of time, pre-A, creating and building resentment over what shouldn't be or what should be, instead of what was? Instead of your part, your power? Do you know by rote all your warning signs, your tendencies and routines you do when stress goes up or down?

Your job is to know yourself thoroughly, choose where and how long your thoughts dwell and on what...know your beliefs and perceptions...and to share, openly and honestly with your BH, your stuff.

Respect OMW's marriage by leaving it out of your thoughts, keeping away from anyone who has ties to it (or attempts to communicate information about it)...keep yourself safe and true...and deepen your intimacy with your BH, to heal even more, further, holding yourself to O&H, hence, in reality.

LA

Mel,

I quite regularly see people on these forums who are recovering their marriages heap venom on the OP - I believe we have commonly used acronyms on here COW (very vulgar) and POSOM (not quite as vulgar).

You seem to recognize that the BS may feel hate toward the OP. I asked this in the past, mostly because I had not feelings of hatred toward OM, and I was told during the great blankness from the summer, that it was to allow the BS some emotional room to work on the marriage.

As to way she asked this, I too find that pretty strange. Plus how would she know the WH wasn't getting piles and piles of hate coming his way.

But that is not what you said. You said
You are saying it is a "good idea if you want to save your marriage." I have no idea where you got this idea. It has nothing to do with saving your marriage, but with the fact that when someone commits a crime against you, a normal, healthy rational mind will naturally hate that person. If a woman is raped, of course she will hate her rapist. Decent people hate injustice. I have never seen a MB concept that said that "if you want to save the marriage then it is a good idea to aim most of the hate and anger at the OP." That doesn't even make sense because what saves a marriage has NOTHING to do with one's feelings towards an OP.



Agree.

My feelings of hate towards the OW have absolutely nothing to do with the recovery of my marriage. Not a thing. Not even in the same universe. What saved my marriage were my husband's actions as outlined in Dr. Harley's Just Compensation among many other things.

Let me answer this another way. The hatred towards an OP are feelings that resulted from an assault. They are a RESULT of a crime, not an engineered TACTIC to "save a marriage." A person who does not hate the OP cannot be coerced into doing do under the illusion that it will save a marriaqe. That makes no sense, especially since one's feelings towards the OP have nothing to do with saving the marriage.

I'm just commenting on the asymmetry, which I believe was the central question. And it is asymmetric on the forums, you never see CWW or POSWH, possibly applying to an X.


I always find these definitional statements about mental health and normality to be some form of DJ about the people who do not have those feelings. I don't remember if you are a mental health professional, and there is no way I am going to read all of your posts to figure that out.

I still think it is part of the way the BS manages their emotions regarding the A.